Apple Sends Cease-and-Desist To the Hymn Project

Troed writes "Tools for removing DRM from iTunes-purchased songs (myFairTunes7, QtFairUse6) have been available from the Hymn Project Web site for some time. These are legal in many countries. But on the 20th Apple sent a Cease and Desist note to Hymn's ISP, forcing the site admins to remove all download links. It is speculated that this is due to a new tool being created (Requiem) that attacks Apple's FairPlay DRM through cryptographic means instead of by copying the unprotected music from memory while it is being played. But since the tools are no longer available (after several days there are still no public mirrors), discussion around this topic has died out. Many users buy music from the iTunes store and rely on DRM removal to be able to play the content on their mobile phones. Apple may be on dangerous ground here, since those users might now start checking out competing services."

Comments

Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me how is this not evil and not unlike Microsoft?

Re:Evil

[din100]

apple is far worse than MS,

Re:Evil

[nguy]

Now tell me how is this not evil and not unlike Microsoft?

Nor is it particularly new. Apple has a long history of this kind of thing, from deliberate incompatibilities to claiming that they invented the GUI and trying to prevent everybody else (including open source) from implementing GUIs for any kind in the 1980's. They lost on a technicality. Apple is, and has always been, evil. But they do make nice products. Think of it as the beautiful girlfriend with no morals.

torrents

[TI-8477]

I assume that anyone who has the original installer could upload it to the pirate bay as a torrent, right?

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Apple, and fuck DRM.

Good old DMCA.

[palegray.net]

It is speculated that this is due to a new tool being created (Requiem) that attacks Apple's FairPlay DRM through cryptographic means instead of by copying the unprotected music from memory while it is being played. And that's where they went wrong. The message being that apparently it's okay to copy something that's already available in the clear, but you just can't go around trafficking in naughty circumvention measures. Darn those pesky programmers and their fancy code...

In Apple's defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, they are a business, and need to make money, at the very least just to pay the bills and survive. Running iTunes must cost a bundle. If everyone pirated their music, this great service would be gone. Additionally, they have no choice - they have to pay the RIAA etc for the music to begin with. It's like stealing a coke from a small grocery store owner - you're not screwing coca cola over, your screwing the store owner over.

Re:In Apple's defense

[Nicholas Evans]

Yes, the evil pirates are ruining iTunes by not using it to buy their mus-wait, what?

Try more along the lines of buying coke from a small grocery store and then pouring the coke into a big jug so it takes up less space in your fridge, then discarding the cans.

Re:In Apple's defense

[faaaz]

Your analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be walking into a store and buying a coke. When the coke is bought you find out that it is, in fact, chained to the store and you have to drink it inside. Hymn is the glass you pour the coke into in order to be able to chill outside where you want to be.

Re:In Apple's defense

[Brian Gordon]

What are you going on about? How does stripping DRM from itunes-purchased tracks affect Apple's bottom line at all?

Re:In Apple's defense

[SeaFox]

Your analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be walking into a store and buying a coke. When the coke is bought you find out that it is, in fact, chained to the store and you have to drink it inside. Hymn is the glass you pour the coke into in order to be able to chill outside where you want to be.

Your analogy is also flawed. Because the fact the Coke was chained to the store was no secret. It's not something you didn't find out after you bought it. It's more like you bought the Coke knowing full well it was chained to the store but also knew that if you bought this special Hymn glass you could take the Coke outside, and you assumed you'd always be able to do that. But suddenly Apple came along and sent a C&D to the company making Hymn glasses.

Re:In Apple's defense

[tepples]

How does stripping DRM from itunes-purchased tracks affect Apple's bottom line at all? Two reasons:

• Sales of other digital audio players increase at the expense of iPod players, as Lehk228 alluded to.
• Record labels become more likely to withdraw works that they control from iTunes Store.

Re:In Apple's defense

[phulegart]

Actually buying cans of Coke and pouring them into a larger jug to save space in the fridge will affect the quality of the drink. It will go flat quite quickly once those cans have been opened, regardless of how quickly you fill the jug, and regardless of how little air you leave in the bottle.

Try this little experiment. Purchase two 20oz bottles of Coke. Open one of them for a few seconds, and then close it up. Put both in the fridge for a few days. Then, open them both up and sample them both. You will find a measurable difference in quality.

Now, you begin to approach what happens to the DRMed music that is purchased from iTunes, burned to a CD, and re-ripped.

Of Course, one could always rip into a lossless format, instead of mp3.

Re:In Apple's defense

[DECS]

Apple isn't in the business of profiting from song/movie media creation. It is a reseller. It is a retail store. WalMart doesn't really care if you bootleg Britney Spears, as long as you don't shoplift the CD. Similarly, Apple doesn't care "financially" that you use some FairPlay track outside of its studio designed license.

However, Apple has legal contracts with the studios that assure them that it will work in good faith to preserve its DRM in such a way that iTunes remains a store and not a source for widespread bootlegging and Internet distribution. This is somewhat silly because every CD sold is more of a source of unrestricted copying than a FairPlay song, and Apple would just as soon sell its tracks DRM free. That would mean Apple doesn't have to police a system that exists to keep honest people honest with some inconvenience, and try to prevent thieves from stealing, which is somewhat impossible anyway.

However, reality means that Apple does have to stop flagrant activity designed to facilitate theft. The iTunes license specifically outlines how songs can be used. The fact that Hymn allows users to violate their contract with Apple at the time of sale does not redefine the contract terms. It does however force Apple to put pressure on Hymn so Apple won't be sued or abandoned by its studio partners for failing to uphold its own resale license.

Anyone crying about iTunes restrictions should be buying CDs. There's nothing more that can be said about that. Nobody has a right to redefine the licensing terms of a product unilaterally just because they want to use it in a different way than it is being offered. If you disagree, remember how butt hurt you get when you read that TiVo or Microsoft whoever is violating the GPL.

If you support the idea of free software enforced by GPL/BSD/MIT style licenses, you have to also respect the licensing rules offered by commercial vendors, and either chose not to use them or use them in compliance with the terms of the agreement.

But there's no honor among thieves, as this thread demonstrates.

Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD
Is Apple Shedding its Final Cut Pro Apps at NAB?

Re:In Apple's defense

[Anonymous Coward]

A better analogy would be walking into a store and buying a coke. When the coke is bought you find out that it is, in fact, chained to the store and you have to drink it inside. Hymn is the glass you pour the coke into in order to be able to chill outside where you want to be.

Well.. If you change "coke" to "beer", then there are places called "bars" where you can't legally take your drink outside of the establishment. And there are completely legal to purchase glasses called "thermoses" that will allow you to transport said beer out of the bar, assuming you don't get caught, though conspicuous consumption of said "beer" in public will likely get you into some sort of trouble.

I don't know what my point is other than that duelling analogies are usually not more than pissing contests between two Slashdot addicts who want to express an opinion but have a woefully low understanding about the actual topic.

Re:In Apple's defense

[WinterSolstice]

Finally an intelligent comment.

If Apple doesn't attempt to stop blatant illegal uses of its DRM, it won't be able to convince the media companies to use it.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that Apple cares about people converting formats, as long as they don't make a huge deal about it. If I were to buy it in the "non-drm" format, they don't care if I convert it to OGG, WAV, or WMA. If it's in the DRM format though, they are breaking *their* contract if they don't try to prevent it.

Why the heck is everyone so passionate about this? Like has been said a million times - if you don't like the RIAA/Apple/Microsoft/Etc, don't support them. Write and record your own music. Support local artists. Use a tape deck or some generic MP3 player.

Come off it people, this is LAME.

Re:In Apple's defense

[Erpo]

Your analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be walking into a store and buying a coke. When the coke is bought you find out that it is, in fact, chained to the store and you have to drink it inside. Hymn is the glass you pour the coke into in order to be able to chill outside where you want to be.

Your analogy is also flawed. Because the fact the Coke was chained to the store was no secret. It's not something you didn't find out after you bought it. It's more like you bought the Coke knowing full well it was chained to the store but also knew that if you bought this special Hymn glass you could take the Coke outside, and you assumed you'd always be able to do that. But suddenly Apple came along and sent a C&D to the company making Hymn glasses.

Your analogy is also flawed. The fact that chain is mentioned in little tiny letters on the bottom of the can (right after dextromethylpyroxyencryptorific acid and Red #2) does not mean that people know about it. Also, trying to stop people from unchaining cokes from stores is wrong, regardless of whether the store can get away with it or whether people know about it in advance.

Also, computers are like cars--let's keep the flawed analogy chain going.

Re:In Apple's defense

[kerrbear]

> but also knew that if you bought this special Hymn glass you could take the Coke outside, and you assumed you'd always be able to do that. But suddenly Apple came along and sent a C&D to the company making Hymn glasses.

A real world analogy might be more like if you bought a special cup at a store that gave out free refills. As long as you use the cup, you can get all the Coke you want - but if you want another kind of drink, you have to buy a different special cup. Also, the cup is chained to the store, so you can only have the Coke in the store. Hymn is the product that allows you to cut the chain and take the cup out of the store. Really fine if you just take the coke out of the store and drink it at home, but bad if you take the cup out of the store and loan it to all your friends so they can go and get all the free coke they want. Since Coke is sugar water, it is pretty cheap and they can afford to give free refills to each customer- the store makes money by selling the cups to different customers. But if everyone is using the same cup, the store won't make any money. It sucks that you can't take the Coke out of the store, but the store sees it as their only level of protection. I would rather unchain the cup in this scenario, and not share it with my friends. Sure maybe you could give your friends a drink once in a while, but if they really want all the coke they can drink, they should buy their own cup.

Yeah, okay

[DurendalMac]

Apple on dangerous ground? They may lose .01% of their market! People who crack the DRM on iTunes (and their purchase hinges on that) are a tiny part of the market. I can understand both sides here (Apple kinda has to do this or the record companies, who don't like Apple enough as it is, will get even more pissed, but the crackers want fair usage of their music), but saying that Apple is on "dangerous ground" is more self-important internet crap.

Re:Yeah, okay

[Dogtanian]

Apple on dangerous ground? They may lose .01% of their market! [..] saying that Apple is on "dangerous ground" is more self-important internet crap. You got there before me :)

I'm not sure if this is a geek-specific variant version of the "I'm an important customer so they should do what I want or watch out", or if it's just the less arrogant(?) but equally deluded flaw of Slashdotters to assuming that their views and behaviour are representative of more than a tiny percentage of the market. Probably a mixture- they're both facets of the same thing anyway.

The latter case is something like when people say "I [or 'people'] would be more likely to buy the PSP if they removed the DRM restrictions etc. and let me do what I liked with it". Sorry, but a guaranteed sale to 1, or 5 or 500 people is going to be vastly outweighed by the profits Sony thinks (or hoped) it'll make by tying down the machine and selling people content or applications instead of letting them add their own.

I mean, personally I'd have been far more likely to buy a PSP if it had been more hackable or at least an open development environment, but I'm under no delusions as to my importance in the market, or to what Sony actually want.

Re:Yeah, okay

[7Prime]

Bingo. Also, I should mention that Apple DRM is unimportant anyway, since they already sell non-DRM version of most (all?) of their iTMS material. So why are we still fighting DRM? Oh, that's right, because we want everything to cost us nothing.

Basically, people had some kind of ethical case for fighting DRM back when Apple was DRM-only... but now that Apple has given in, it's just complaining that they want music for free. I have to draw the line there. Or are you suggesting that all media should be inherently free? That's rediculous and unjustified.

This really exposes media piracy for what it's always been, all along... people not wanting to pay for shit that they normally would have to. I'm sick of all the pretenses, fighting DRM was never about free speech, was it? It was about getting free shit. I actually believed their was a greater cause... I guess I was wrong.

Fuck it, from now on, I refuse to go to bat for anyone who pirates music, they're on their own.

As a myFairTunes user...

[ikarous]

I will have be forced to stop using the iTunes store if the Hymn project disappears. I don't own an iPod—I don't *want* an iPod—but I do want to play my music on the Linux-powered media box in my living room. Is that really too much to ask?

Re:As a myFairTunes user...

[SeaFox]

but I do want to play my music on the Linux-powered media box in my living room. Is that really too much to ask?

Yes, because Apple isn't trying to sell music to Linux users, they're trying to sell iPods. Maybe there was a big need for Hymn back when the iTMS was the only store around with major recording artists (I mean ones you heard on top-40 stations, not college rock stations), but with Amazon's store seemingly redundant with Apple's catalog, why don't you just start using them instead?

Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore?

[multisync]

Why does anyone still shop at the iTunes Store for music if they want DRM-free songs? Just use Amazon.

So, what part of the United States do you live in?

The only dangerous ground apple is in..

[Protonk]

The only dangerous ground apple is in is with record companies if they don't aggressively pursue DRM faults/breaks/violations. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that apple has clauses in their contracts with these companies that force them to maintain their DRM updated, track offenders and litigate where necessary.

This is not to say that apple is blameless. They aren't. Apple, at this point, has had the chance to shame record labels (at least them. It appears we are doomed to repeat this nonsense with video) into changing their contracts. They took the opportunity to sound like a white knight in copyleft circles for a few weeks and did nothing. Maybe this was because companies were intransigent in negotiation. Maybe it is because apple's commitment to DRM free media was less than sincere. Probably both.

Part of what is allowing this silliness to happen is the dMCA itself. These folks can be send a CnD because they might be cryptographically breaking DRM, but regular old listening and rerecording is ok. The anti-circumvention clause allows companies to litigate in the absence of real infringement. That is the problem.

Re:The only dangerous ground apple is in..

[GarfBond]

The only dangerous ground apple is in is with record companies if they don't aggressively pursue DRM faults/breaks/violations. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that apple has clauses in their contracts with these companies that force them to maintain their DRM updated, track offenders and litigate where necessary.

Oh, you mean something like this?

However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

That explains the C&D letter pretty well.

This is not to say that apple is blameless. They aren't. Apple, at this point, has had the chance to shame record labels (at least them. It appears we are doomed to repeat this nonsense with video) into changing their contracts. They took the opportunity to sound like a white knight in copyleft circles for a few weeks and did nothing. Maybe this was because companies were intransigent in negotiation. Maybe it is because apple's commitment to DRM free media was less than sincere. Probably both.

Perhaps that letter may be of further use to you still.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

How about some additional context? NYtimes: Music Industry, Souring on Apple, Embraces Amazon Service:

In any case, the industry is waiting to see whether -- and how quickly -- Amazon can grow into a credible alternative to iTunes, and whether Mr. Jobs will stand by as his service, which commands as much as 80 percent of digital download sales, is challenged.

"This is really a stare-down," said one major label executive who was briefed on the new Pepsi promotion and who requested anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak about it.

Industry executives say the rivalry could intensify if the two services jockey over who will be given exclusive rights to some songs or special promotions. A senior executive at another record company, who requested anonymity out of concern about irritating Mr. Jobs, said he was prepared to keep copy restrictions on his label's songs on iTunes for six months to a year while Amazon establishes itself. Apple insists on selling all single tracks for 99 cents, while Amazon sells them for 89 cents to over a dollar.

Looks like the real story here is that Apple would rather sell DRM-free music, and the labels would rather use consumers as pawns in their vendetta against Apple by making Amazon your only choice. Remember that: blame for iTunes DRM can be placed squarely on the labels' shoulders, because they want to interfere with your choice.

Many?

[STrinity]

Let's be realistic here -- the number of people who hate DRM is pretty small to begin with, and the number of them who continue to buy from iTunes (especially now that Amazon has just about everything DRM-free) is even smaller still.

Re:You don't need software...

[djseomun]

What's more convenient? Software removing DRM in a matter of seconds from songs that I paid for, or CD burning, which not only takes several minutes but also uses a CD? I think these smart kids you refer to know what the right answer is.

more rubbish

[pbjones]

Apple is not under threat, they still sell bulk music, people still durn their own CDs etc. The difference here is that cracking DRM via an attack on the cryptography is illegal in most countries, while other, simpler methods, are in a grey area.

Re:Steve Jobs = Hypocrite

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So he bashes DRM http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ and then turns around and has his company issue a take down for anti-DRM software? That's awfully two-faced.

I don't think that is two-faced. Jobs position has always been that DRM on music is counter productive and a flawed concept. His position has also been, that it is a necessary evil if you want to do business with the RIAA cartel which controls the music distribution in the US. First he pushed for the most user friendly and unrestrictive DRM of any company reselling RIAA music. Then he pushed to get them to sell some music with no DRM, for a slightly higher price.

Sometimes you can not agree with something, but still have to put up with it to do business.

Re:It's theft of service

[hedwards]

Let's say you go get a hair cut. Then you walk out without paying for it. You haven't deprived anyone of physical property, however it is still "theft of service". But you aren't paying for an item, you're paying for the time and energy that the barber uses to cut your hair. If a barber chooses to cut your hair, then he doesn't have that time available to cut somebody else's. Theft of service is a concept which was developed to deal with times when the commodity being sold was both rivalrous and intangible so that services that people need would be available to those willing to pay. It isn't a concept which logically extends to items which are either non-rivalrous or are tangible in nature.

If you were to download a song or software program off of a p2p network, you haven't prevented the bits from being sold to other people, the business is no better, or worse, off than it would have been had you chosen to not use it at all. In some ways, the company might even be better off for you having done it, because if you've downloaded an installed their program in that manner you haven't joined a competitors install base, and they can use the install as an indication of prevalence anyways.

I wish trolls like you would come up with a better set of analogies, because this is just as tired as it always was, and it isn't even logically consistent.

I don't personally agree with downloading content without respecting the licensing agreement and paying any relevant fees, but it really undermines the interests of the content producers to have trolls like you trying to make analogies which are as severely distorted as this one is. This isn't any different than any other situation where you have free riders using a resource without contributing to its creation or upkeep.

Re:You don't need software...

[Anonymous Coward]

The easiest way to remove Apple iTunes DRM is to burn an audio CD with your tracks. Then, rip the CD to MP3. In fact, Apple tells you this explicitly on their website in the tech support section. There are several advantages to this, the number one being, you don't have to run fly-by-night, I-don't-know-this-person, hey-ma-look-at-that-keylogger-go greyware to do it. You just need a fucking CD BURNER.

And I thought /. kids were smarter than this. That's also the easiest way to butcher the quality. QTFairuse was lossless. It captured the decrypted aac stream before it was decoded and then put it in a new, DRM-free, container. Plus, it was licensed under the GPL and written in Python.

Re:It's theft of service

[The Anarchist Avenge]

Actually, your analogy is flawed. Downloading music is more like walking over to a barbershop, taking notes on the hairstyle of a person walking out the door, then going home and giving yourself an identical haircut. Uploading is walking out of the barbershop after you've purchased a haircut, and screaming "ANYONE WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT MY HAIRCUT IS WELCOME TO".

Re:It's theft of service

[BronsCon]

You deprived a paying customer, who could have received that service, of the service which you did not pay for. You deprived the person providing the service of the ability to make money from that service during the time they were servicing you. Yes, I would say that is theft. More so, even, than stealing a CD, where you are only preventing the owner of the CD from using it.

Yes you do.

[pavon]

/. kids are smart enough to know that transcoding decreases the sound quality, and burning to CD is a waste of money.

But judging from the other comments here, while they're self-righteous enough to bitch about DRM, they don't have the fucking backbone to just not buy DRM'ed music.

Re:Beating the Bully

[ScrewMaster]

Well, given that this product is a tool specifically intended to "circumvent an anti-piracy device" I'd say the leg is there.

Re:It's theft of service

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy is equally flawed.

If you want to listen to a song, take notes, and then record your own cover of that song (for your own enjoyment and not for distribution), you can. That would be identical to the haircut.

Re:Why put up with that crap?

[mr_matticus]

Yeah, I don't think anyone will be taking English language notes from a person who can't distinguish between "its" and "it's".

If you want to say that it's not theft in the traditional sense, you're right. If you want to say that it's not larceny in any sense, you're right. But you can't object to the term "stealing" on any categoric ground. There are just too many definitions where 'steal' is valid for the situation to complain; at the very best, if you handpick your definition from the words, and the definition of words in that definition, you can craft one that copyright infringement doesn't satisfy. Here's the rub: for that one definition that you made that doesn't work, there are eight that do.

Theft is larceny and also stealing and sometimes burglary. Copying is neither theft nor larceny nor burglary, but it is stealing. Whether larceny or copyright infringement is "wrong" is a matter of individual opinion, but as far as collective will is concerned, it's a settled matter for both.

Believe in IP = TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

The new commandment of Slashdot: "Thou shalt not believe in Imaginary Property. Unless said Imaginary Property happens to be free software, in which case it most definitely is not imaginary. Anyone violating the GNU GPL will suffer the death of a thousand slashdottings."

It's not a site for tech professionals any more, it's a circlejerk for pirates seeking moral justification from each other. Hey guys, if it's fine to break an IP license for a movie, song or game, it's fine to break it for the Linux kernel as well, since that "property" is no less "imaginary".

Re:It's theft of service

[khellendros1984]

But....have I deprived someone else of payment? I prefer some forms of music that I prefer. However, my preference isn't $15 strong per CD. If I couldn't get the music for free (or at heavily reduced price), then I would choose to have it unavailable. Their price isn't worth it to me; my next choice would be radio and streaming audio, by which I would also be "deriving someone else of payment".

Last year I would have cared

[EvilMagnus]

I used to use Hymn to make copies of my legally purchased iTunes songs. It was only because I *could* make m4a files out of iTunes downloads that I purchased music from Apple in the first place.

Now that Amazon is in the mp3 business I've been buying all my music from them. I've bought more music from Amazon in the last two months than I did in the last year from iTMS. iTunes was great when there was no other legal way to get a large selection of artists. That's changed now.

Re:It's theft of service

[Anonymous Coward]

The hair-cut analogy is a one-to-one example of a service-delivered to a single customer. Of course, everyone understands that when someone performs a service, that they should be compensated for it by the person receiving said service. Hair cuts work very well because the value of the barber's time is about the same as the value of the haircut to the person receiving it.

But, what about services with a lopsided value, where the "cost" (in time, training, materials) to the provider is way in excess of the value of the service to an individual? Those type of services will then generally not be available in the general market, because there are no customers. Unless the service can be performed once, and be sold to many customers. In those cases, a group of people split the cost among themselves. Like in the case of a theatrical performance. There is no way an average person could afford to hire an entire acting troop for one private showing. But by selling that showing to several thousand people that show up at the theater, it all works out.

But what about the person who sneaks in. Assume there are a few unsold seats. That individual isn't depriving the theater of money from a paying customer, since there are still seats available. But I would still say that individual is committing a theft of service, even if there is no way that he would have paid for a ticket even if he wasn't able to sneak in. Yes, the legal term may or may not be "theft of service" in this case, but he is still enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor without paying his fair share (and potentially causing other customers to pay more in the long run).

Re:Beating the Bully

[ScrewMaster]

You're quibbling. The fact is that this particular software isn't legal to traffic in, in the USA. You can thank the DMCA for that one. I think that's ridiculous, personally, and wish they'd repeal that particular bit of Congressional rubbish ... but there it is.

Re:It's theft of service

[Curien]

Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft. Everyone focuses on the method of obtaining...[and not the lack of payment]

I imagine you'd feel that blocking advertisements with a proxy or similar would be stealing. If I don't install Flash, am I "stealing" from sites that have Flash-based ads? If I choose not to display /any/ images, am I "stealing" from all the sites with banner ads? If I'm browsing with Lynx (and thus can't display images), is it still stealing? What if I display the images and just choose to ignore them?

Do you ever borrow a book, CD, or movie from a friend or the library? THIEF!
Do you ever skip the previews (aka commercials) on a DVD? THIEF!
Do you ever get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials? THIEF!
Do you ever pay your credit card bill in full, thereby depriving the CC company of any interest for their loan? THIEF!
Have you ever walked by a street musician without dropping money in the case? THIEF!
Have you ever written a research paper in which you cited material you did not personally own? THIEF!
Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday" and forgotten to pay the royalties? THIEF!

Jeez, by your flawed definition of "stealing" (that any time you "deprive someone else of payment", you've stolen from them), Linus Torvalds has stolen millions of dollars from Microsoft for all the lost customers. And GM better watch out before they get arrested for stealing from Ford!

Backpedalling begins in three... two... one...

It's an extremely flawed analogy

[Weaselmancer]

It doesn't have a car in it.

Re:It's theft of service

[Anonymous Coward]

No you're not. Streaming radio involves royalties. Giving a CD you own away for free is fine, because it's yours to give away. Selling a CD you bought legitimately at a lower price than MSRP is fine, because it's yours to give away. Transferring a single copy you legally posses to someone else and destroying your copy is fine, at least as far as copyright is concerned (the terms of use of the service may make purchases non-transferrable, in which case you can't and should shop elsewhere).

But taking a copy and conveying it multiple times, with each person retaining his copy, is distribution, and that's not a right you have. You agreed that the artist/label/owner retained that right when you entered into the bargain. If that was a right you wanted to maintain, you made yourself a bad deal.

It's not as simple as merely "depriving someone else of payment"--it's doing that where you're not entitled to do so. All these "but what about this; I got it and didn't pay" are just cheap attempts to water down the issue to something it's not. You're not depriving anyone of payment when you listen to the radio or when you sell second-hand goods, because they're not selling those things.

Depriving someone of payment by taking something that is theirs to sell and giving it away isn't allowed. If you're giving away your old computer, that's yours to dispense with; you can't simply become a distributor of something when you are expressly denied that position.

However, my preference isn't $15 strong per CD. Then get something else. If it's not a fair deal for a fair price, do without. If it's theirs to sell and there's no legal alternate source, you're out of luck. Why you think this should be any different than any other situation is beyond me.

It doesn't matter that you think what they do is without value. It's theirs to do with as they please, and you don't have any legitimate need for it or any kind of right to it. If it truly didn't have any value, you wouldn't want it in the first place.

Re:It's theft of service

[feepness]

If you were to download a song or software program off of a p2p network, you haven't prevented the bits from being sold to other people, But you have prevented them from selling it to you.

the business is no better, or worse, off than it would have been had you chosen to not use it at all. In some ways, the company might even be better off for you having done it, because if you've downloaded an installed their program in that manner you haven't joined a competitors install base, and they can use the install as an indication of prevalence anyways. Perhaps we should let them decide that for themselves, rather than deciding what is convenient for us.

Re:Damn Sony and their DRM!

[SHaFT7]

coke and super mario didn't have an OS. so yes that is free advertising. OS2/Warp is old, so who cares. Isn't BeOS free? Apple DID have an os, and one of the major 'cool' factors was the aqua interface. So when you made icons for xp that in essence makes it 'look' like a mac, apple thinks 'crap, customers will see that you can get mac os coolness on an xp, we might sell x less machines.....serve them!' now, i don't agree with the letters they sent you, but you have to understand why they did it.

Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore?

[dissy]

Why does anyone still shop at the iTunes Store for music if they want DRM-free songs? Just use Amazon. Why does anyone still shop at the iTunes Store for music if they want DRM-free songs? Just use BitTorrent.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Why put up with that crap?

[mdwh2]

There are just too many definitions where 'steal' is valid for the situation to complain

Example?

If you want to say that it's not theft in the traditional sense, you're right.

It's not about in the traditional sense. The point is that even if you do find a definition of "steal" which fits - just because a word has more than one definition doesn't make those definitions the same.

I could murder a beer, but it would be nonsensical to suggest that this was anything to do with the crime of murder. When people refer to copyright infringement as theft or stealing, you can bet that they intend to make the suggestion that they are the same.

Fairplay and OOXML

[obarthelemy]

It's funny how people will rant about how OOXML and Office format lock-in is evil, and then go buy stuff on iTunes. iTunes is worse:
- No even just partially compatible alternative at all. Your Farplay songs MUST be played with Apple stuff. Doc files CAN be opened with other software.
- It's even arguably illegal to open FairPlay files with another sotware/hardware. Imagine if MS did that with their formats !
-> apart from the lock-in, Fairplay is risky long-term: who knows how long apple will release good/cheap or not-so-good/not-so-cheap hardware-software for you guys to acces you FairPlay files ?

Re:It's theft of service

[Mr2001]

But, what about services with a lopsided value, where the "cost" (in time, training, materials) to the provider is way in excess of the value of the service to an individual? Those type of services will then generally not be available in the general market, because there are no customers. Unless the service can be performed once, and be sold to many customers. In those cases, a group of people split the cost among themselves. Indeed, this is quite common. Consider a private road where a dozen neighbors decide to split the cost of having it paved, a cost which would be too much for any one of them to afford on his own.

But suppose one of the neighbors decides he doesn't want to pay. Maybe he doesn't care about having a paved road because he drives a 4x4, or maybe he's just a cheapskate. The other neighbors can go ahead and pay for the road to be paved, splitting the cost 11 ways instead of 12.

Now, is the cheap neighbor doing anything wrong by continuing to drive on that road once it's paved? I say no. The people who paid chose to pay, and the pavers chose to do the work, knowing full well that it's impractical to prevent other people from driving on the road once the work is done. (Preventing copyrighted work from being shared is even less practical.)

But what about the person who sneaks in. Assume there are a few unsold seats. That individual isn't depriving the theater of money from a paying customer, since there are still seats available. But I would still say that individual is committing a theft of service, even if there is no way that he would have paid for a ticket even if he wasn't able to sneak in. I wouldn't. He's trespassing against the theater owner, because the space inside the theater is a limited resource. But he isn't committing any harm against the actors themselves; they're working exactly as hard no matter how many people are watching them. You're right that the legal term in that scenario isn't "theft of service" - because the service (the actors' labor) isn't what's taken.

he is still enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor without paying his fair share There's nothing wrong with that: we all enjoy the fruits of other people's labor without paying for it. Payment isn't something you're obligated to give whenever you benefit from someone else's labor; it's something you choose to give in order to convince them to perform that labor.

For instance, you don't pay the barber for your haircut because there's some moral law that says money has to change hands whenever hair is cut. You pay him because he's free to spend his time however he wants, and he's decided that he'd rather be doing something other than cutting hair unless he's going to be paid for it. (Typically you pay after the service is performed, which means the promise of being paid is what convinces him, but by making that promise you're entering into a contract, which is what actually obligates you to pay later.)

Re:Why put up with that crap?

[mr_matticus]

"Take" still implies depriving the original owner of it. Not according to any credible theory of verb agency.

just as bad as the other meaning of the word "stealing". Don't impart your morality on a structural argument.

it's you who perhaps should be spending your energy to make copyright infringment legally a form of stealing. Well, it already is stealing. Making it "legally a form of stealing" is meaningless; 'stealing' isn't against the law. Theft is not the same as stealing.

I'm saying that copyright infringement is not theft/stealing, either legally, nor is it by definition the same thing as when "theft" is used to refer to physical products. Theft and stealing are not interchangeable, linguistically OR under the law. It is not theft. Theft is a term of art. Stealing is not; it's just a word. From someone with such a weak understanding of legality and linguistics, it's not hard to imagine why you're having such a hard time understanding that basic reality.

Flopping back and forth between two linguistically distinct words with the same orthographic representation doesn't make your argument any stronger. Are you committing the legal offense of murder(0) when performing the act of consumption, murder(1)? Of course not.

Re:It's theft of service

[Anonymous Coward]

but allow me to enlighten you with the difference you don't see. You're right, I don't see it...because it's not a difference.

When you steal IP, the other party isn't losing anything Sure they are. They're losing their rights the same way trespassers eventually deprive landowners of their land. If they don't have the right to make something and then decide how to sell it, what good are any of their other rights?

We should reward people who do choose to allow copying, and those who recognize it's a net gain in the long run. But to force people to do so for no viable public policy reason should be deeply offensive to anyone valuing autonomy and freedom.

In the first case, if you hadn't existed, the company wouldn't be any better\worse off, But we don't care. The background rationale is the same: we don't want people to lose things they're entitled to because of the selfish acts of third parties. Whether that loss is monetary, physical, or liberty-based is situational. Of course stealing an apple isn't like not paying your accountant. But the basic reason we don't allow either is the same.

The world doesn't get to have something I made just because they want it and can get it without any actual economic cost to me. If I don't want to give it away, I shouldn't be forced to. If I want to sell it, it should be on my terms. The world doesn't need my short fiction. It won't save any lives or invent any new technology; it won't feed the hungry and its restricted sale doesn't take rights away from anyone--it's my story. If someone else wants to write for the world and release it with no strings attached, I'm happy to support that, too.

Re:It's theft of service

[MacWiz]

Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft.

That is such a sad, negative viewpoint. How much do you pay for air to breathe? Monthly bill for rain and sunshine? When wildflowers bloom spontaneously on your yard, or the birds sing a song, who do you send a check to? Free prize? Quantity discount? Traffic ticket? Christmas, birthday, wedding, going away, welcome back, happy anniversary or graduation gifts must all be out of the question, too.

Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.

Most of us were also taught to share. Mysteriously, everyone only wants to listen to the three percent that didn't learn this lesson.

Re:It's theft of service

[llamaspit]

Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.

There are musicians who never play live. It happens on all levels. Many, many techno, trance, house artists never perform their art live. Led Zeppelin just performed live for the first time in many, many years, believe me, I've been waiting for it. Pink Floyd only play a few shows every time they tour. And yet, many of these artists (hopefully Zep, someday) still write and record and sell new and old releases.

You may well be in the minority these days. I know musicians want more people at their shows. But I also know that any musician would love to make a living playing music. And let's face it, there are many cities in this country without adequate places to play live for those musicians who can't leave their day jobs for a tour. Most medium sized cities have maybe one or two venues for any particular type of music.

Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.

It's a fact that just a decade or two ago, playing live was a marketing mechanism geared towards selling albums. Most tours actually *lost* money, and the few tours that made money were the over-the-top tours, like the Stones or Pink Floyd. The vast majority of tours were losing money. And it wasn't limited to bar bands, these were arena and stadium shows losing money. There were many bands who signed a record deal, the record company fronted the money for them to go on tour, the tour lost money and wound up in the hole. In fact, many of the bands I listened to back in the 80s are now broke for precisely that reason. Tours were money-losers. Go back and check the numbers, it's a fact.

Nowadays, ticket prices are through the roof. There are many arguments as to why. It could be that tours cost more, gas costs more, labor costs more, venues charge more, taxes are greater, ticketmaster costs more, etc. It could be because artists are feeling the bite of music sales being compromised by free downloads. I don't think anyone has any solid numbers on that. I suspect it's a combination of all of the above. But it is true that the industry has flipped from being an album-based or single-based system to an event-based system.

Think about it this way. In the 80s, I could buy an album for about 10 or 12 bucks, on the high side. How much to see that same band live? 10 or 12 bucks. I have the ticket stubs to prove it.

Look where we are now. I recently paid $68 a ticket for the cheap seats. And that's very reasonable. I've seen shows advertised for $120 for the cheap seats.

And how much to buy a new release? That price has actually gone down. At its peak, CDs were being sold for about $18 on average. You can now download some full releases for 10-14 bucks. Just like one song by the band? It's not released as a single? Not a problem, just download that one song for $.99. That's something we always wanted in the 80s and 90s. Don't like CDs? Not a problem. Record old style to tapes from what you downloaded (but why?). Or put it on your mp3 player. The fact is, the fan has more options these days than ever before, and the quality is fantastic (no scratches, skips, warps, dust problems). And yet with all those options, many fans are complaining, more loudly than ever before. The fact is, although they were late to the party, the recording industry has done a great deal to at least try to accommodate listeners by providing more formats and options. It's in their best interest to do so. But read the comments for this article. Have listeners actually even considered the recording industry's side? Have they tried to meet them halfway? No, they want free downloads, period, r